Quick answer: For most Abilene homes, a heat pump deserves a hard look. Our coldest month normally tops out near 58 degrees, which is right in the range where a heat pump does its best work, and one machine handles heating and cooling both. A gas furnace still wins if you have cheap natural gas or want serious heat on the coldest nights.
Every fall somebody asks us the same question, usually standing next to a furnace that has quit for the last time: put another furnace in, or go with a heat pump? The honest answer depends on your house, not on which one is better in general. We have been putting heat in Abilene homes since 1976 and we install both, so we have no dog in the fight.
A heat pump is an air conditioner that runs backward
That is not a figure of speech. Your air conditioner pulls heat out of the house and dumps it outside. A heat pump adds a reversing valve, so in winter it runs the other direction — pulling heat out of the outdoor air, cold as that air feels to you, and moving it inside.
Because it moves heat instead of burning something to make it, a heat pump gets more out of a unit of energy than any furnace can. The Department of Energy puts a properly installed air-source heat pump at two to four times more heat delivered than the electricity it uses. A furnace can never beat the fuel you put in it.
The practical version: a heat pump is one outdoor unit that heats and cools. A furnace setup is two machines on one set of ducts.
Why Abilene winters suit a heat pump
Heat pumps got their bad name from people who live where winter means something different than it does here. The National Weather Service normals for Abilene: in January, our coldest month, the normal high runs 58 to 61 degrees and the normal low 33 to 35.
A 58-degree afternoon is not hard duty, and most of our heating season is milder than January. Those long stretches from late October into March where the house wants a little heat at six in the morning and nothing by noon are exactly what a heat pump does best. A gas furnace in that weather is a sledgehammer — full output, thermostat satisfied in eight minutes, shut off, repeat.
There is a second reason that matters around here. If your air conditioner is 15 years old and your furnace is 15 years old — and they usually are, because they went in the same week — you are facing both bills anyway. A heat pump covers both with one machine.
Where a gas furnace still wins
We are not going to pretend the heat pump takes every house. It does not.
The coldest nights. Abilene does not stay cold, but it gets cold — this past January the low hit 4 degrees, and the all-time record here is nine below. The colder the air outside, the less heat there is in it to move, so a heat pump loses output right when you want it most. Every heat pump has a balance point, the outdoor temperature below which it cannot keep up alone, and under that the backup takes over. On a standard system the backup is electric resistance strips, the most expensive heat you can buy.
Cheap natural gas. If Atmos already runs a line to your house and your winter gas bill is low, the math shifts. Gas sells by the therm and electricity by the kilowatt-hour, so which one wins depends on your rates, not on a national average. Anybody who answers that without looking at your bills is guessing.
How the air feels. This one catches people off guard. A furnace pushes air out of the registers around 120 to 130 degrees. A heat pump usually runs 90 to 110. That is warmer than you are and it will heat the house fine, but it does not feel hot the way a furnace feels hot. Some people never notice. Some cannot stand it. Better to know before than after.
One more thing nobody warns you about: on a damp winter morning you may see the outdoor unit steaming. That is the defrost cycle melting frost off the coil — the system working right, not a breakdown. If it defrosts over and over and the house goes cool, that one is worth a service call.
Dual fuel: the answer for a lot of Abilene homes
A dual-fuel system pairs a heat pump with a gas furnace on the same ducts. The heat pump handles the 40- and 50-degree mornings, which is most of our winter. When it gets cold enough that the furnace is the better bet, the controls hand it off. No strip heat, no shivering through a norther.
It costs more up front, because you are buying both machines. What you get is the efficient one running the nine weeks a year that matter and the furnace waiting on the three days it does not.
Do you have a gas line, and what does your winter gas bill actually run? Is your air conditioner near the end too, or are you only replacing heat? And how much would it bother you if the air out of the vent were warm instead of hot? Answer those three honestly and the right system is usually clear before anybody quotes you a thing.
What it costs, and one thing that changed for 2026
Installed price depends on your house, your ducts, and the equipment you pick, so we are not going to put a number on a web page and call it a quote. We will come measure and hand you a written price before you decide anything, free. Here is how installation works with us.
If you have been putting this off, know one thing: the federal tax credit that paid up to $2,000 toward a qualifying heat pump ended for equipment placed in service after December 31, 2025. It is gone for 2026, and some contractors are still advertising it. Do not build a budget around it. We do offer financing if a lump sum is not in the cards. Every new split-system heat pump sold in this country has to hit at least 14.3 SEER2 and 7.5 HSPF2, so anything you get quoted clears that bar — the question is how far above it is worth paying for in our winters.
Deciding between a heat pump and a furnace in Abilene
Anybody who gives you the answer before seeing your house is selling rather than advising. What decides it is your ductwork, your gas situation, the age of your air conditioner, and how well your house holds heat.
Heat pumps are common around Abilene and our techs work on all of them, so this is not new ground for us. Call or text (325) 692-3645 and Debbie or Amber will pick up — no phone tree. We will come look at what you have, run the numbers with you, and give you a written price with no pressure attached.
If your furnace is limping and you are not sure it is time to replace anything, we wrote about how to make that call. Either way, a heat pump runs year-round instead of half the year, which makes the two seasonal visits in a H.A.V.E.N. maintenance plan matter more, not less.
Written by the Hawkins Air Conditioning team — family-run in Abilene since 1976. Questions? Call or text (325) 692-3645.
